[HowTo] Get full NVMe Support for all Systems with an AMI UEFI BIOS

How can this step be performed?

Which step do you mean?
All steps are summed up within the start post of this thread.

The step is in the quotation?

@seize21 :
Please read the start post carefuly and write, what you want to know, but stop quoting something taken out of context (without even mentioning the source).
Since you obviously were not even able to find a module (here: CSMCORE), which definitively is present within your mainboard BIOS, it is not easy to help you. I am not willing to waste my time for such sort of support.

It is quoted from the original post under section 5.

  1. What do you mean with "original" post? All posts here are original ones.
    2. If you should mean the start post of this thread, I cannot find your quoted sentence within the section 5.
    If you relly want to get help, you should do a little bit more than you have done until now.

Eventually, Iā€™ve switched to Samsung 960 EVO 256GB, and verified that the PCI-E adapter is placed into the 1-st PCI-E slot in the motherboard (I think Iā€™ve located the adapter in the 2-nd slot, thatā€™s why it didnā€™t workā€¦).
Also, I had to delete/remove several modules (as there were no space: file size exceeds the volume size while inserting NvmeExpressDxE_compr ), and Iā€™ve used 3 modules: Nvme, NVMEINT13, NvmeSmm instead of NVMeExpressDxE

Why did you do that?
According to my own experience it doesnā€™t give you any benefit, if you insert these 3 modules (only the Nmve one will be used) instead of doing it according to my guide just by inserting the NvmExpressDxE module. If I am right, there was no need to remove several modules from the BIOS.

Thanks all.
I have modified the BIOS for my G771JW.
I had to remove sections of IPV6, and use "pre-compressed NvmeExpressDxE module".
I found instructions on how to pre-disaster recovery BIOS on ADR laptops.
Programmed BIOS using AFUDOS utility.
SSD defined in the BIOS, I was able to install the system.

If you want, I can give the modified BIOS file.

Dear Fernando
First of all thank you for your excellent work on this topic.
Itā€™s a shame that brands like ASUS have not made a simple upgrade for old boards like the P9X79 mia, everything would have been much simpler.
A few days ago I bought a Corsair Force MP 500 along with a PCie Express adapter to use in the second Pcie slot, so far so good, my surprise starts when I see that my BIOS does not detect such storage drive and against Windows 10 itself. As an anecdote comment that the speed through that slot has given me in sequential reading 2700 Mb / s.
I also see now that I committed stupidity, thinking that I would get an improvement in the hardware compatibility of switching from my Bios 1203.ROM to the last 4801.CAP here the frustration starts. I have followed your guide to reconfigure the Bios file successfully, when trying to flash using the method of using Pen fat 32 with the only file created and renamed with the program asus, pressing the flash button this the light stops blinking and It stays fixed, signal that it finds some error or incompatibility and evidently does not update the bios. Will the security verification failed also extend to this method of updating the Bios ?.
I honestly am afraid to use the second method that you put the Ami, download the application and I saw it too complicated and I have not found any tutorial on my motherboard or similar that indicates the correct steps.
The most certain thing is that I will have to wait to have a budget and buy a modern motherboard where I can take advantage of the investment made in the subject.
If you had any suggestions, you would be received with total gratitude and thanks.
Regards and again Thanks for your good work.

Carlos Alvarez

@FiXXXer1982 :
Thanks for your report.
It is fine, that you finally succeeded.

@Matrix985 :
Hello Carlos,
welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

Although I do not exactly know what you have done, I recommend to try the following:
1. Check your current non-default BIOS settings and store these individual settings somewhere.
2. Clear CMOS.
3. Flash the latest original BIOS (4801.CAP) into the BIOS chip of your mainboard by using the EZ Flash tool.
4. Enter the BIOS and restore your previous non-default BIOS settings.
5. Boot into the OS and check, whether everything works fine.
6. Now you can re-try flashing the modded BIOS via USB Flashback. Important: The only differences to the original BIOS should be a) the inserted NvmeExpressDxE or NvmExpressDxE_2 module and b) the BIOS file name (according the ASUS USB Flashback rules).

Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)

First of all thanks for your guide.

I have the EVGA z77 FTW mainboard and am trying to insert your NVMe module (v2) since Iā€™m considering too get a NVMe drive for quire a while now.

The problem I currently have is, that the Firmware Volume with CSMCORE (Volume 02) only has 8KB free and Iā€™m not sure how to proceed at this point and if it is possible to move modules to a different volume.
Iā€™ve attached a report of MMTool if that is helpful. (1E699122.BIN is my BIOS file)

thanks in advance

1E699122.rpt.txt (21.8 KB)

@Thx_And_Bye :
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!

You should not do that!
The only option to solve the space problem within the Volume 02 without risking to brick your system is to remove an unneeded module from this Volume. If you donā€™t use the RAID mode of your Intel SATA Controller, you can remove the module named "SataDriver" (sometimes named "RaidDriver").

I cannot open the BIOS file, because you renamed it with the suffix *.txt. You have to attach it as ZIP or RAR archive.

Regards
Dieter (alias Fernando)

@Fernando thanks for the help.

Iā€™ve linked the original download for the BIOS file from EVGA in my post the attached file is the report from MMTool. Iā€™ve attached both the BIOS file and the report in archives to this post.
Currently Iā€™m using the RAID with two SATA SSDs are there other modules that are safe to remove?

regards

E699_122.zip (3.5 MB)

1E699122 MMTool report.rar (9.06 KB)

@Thx_And_Bye :
Since your system has either an Intel SandyBridge or an Intel IvyBridge CPU (and not both), only one of the related 2 GopDriver modules named IntelIvbGopDriver (Index 01) and IntelSnbGopDriver (Index 02) is required.
The other one can be removed from the BIOS to get the required space for the NVMe module.

@Fernando
Awesome, Iā€™ll make sure to report back when Iā€™ve installed an NVMe SSD to my system.
Thanks for your help so far!

regards

Well, after a lot of trial and error (and some success), hereā€™s what worked (and didnā€™t work) for me. I seriously did try to keep it brief.

I recently bought a 250GB 960 EVO with the intent of installing it on my ASRock Z77 Fatal1ty Professional motherboard, running Windows 7 Pro. The BIOS file that ASRock America tech support sent to me did not work with the 960 EVO, so I used UEFITool to insert the NvmExpressDxE_2.ffs module into the latest BIOS.

This worked, but I was having a lot of problems getting Windows 7 to install. I decided to get Windows 10 to successfully install first, as it was far less problematic than installing Windows 7. I used Rufus to create a bootable USB flash drive using ā€œGPT partition scheme for UEFIā€, file system ā€œFAT32ā€ and a Windows 10 ISO.

Installing Windows 10 was not a problem. Press F11 at boot for the boot manager, and select the bootable USB flash drive in UEFI mode. I had to install the Samsung NVMe driver for the Windows installer to see the new drive. Upon rebooting, Windows 10 was in the boot manager (F11) and the boot section of the BIOS as ā€œWindows Boot Managerā€. It booted into Windows 10 without any issues.

Installing Windows 7 was more complicated. Originally, I had read that it was necessary to create a custom Windows 7 install media for Windows 7 to install correctly on an NVMe SSD. So, I had to manually inject the two Microsoft hotfixes for Windows 7 NVMe support into the boot.wim and install.wim files from the Windows 7 ISO using DISM, create the Windows 7 USB flash drive in Rufus using ā€œGPT partition scheme for UEFIā€, file system ā€œFAT32ā€, and then overwrite the original boot.wim and install.wim files in the ā€œsourcesā€ folder of the USB flash drive with the ones I had just modified. The modified Windows 7 USB installer worked, but then I ran into problems.

As it turns out, the Windows 7 installation process with the 960 EVO conflicted with my motherboardā€™s Intel SATA controller when set to ā€œRAIDā€ (with drives connected), or with the Asmedia SATA controller enabled. It had no problem with the Intel SATA controller set as ā€œAHCIā€. Windows 10 did not have a problem with the Intel controller in RAID or the Asmedia controller enabled.

With the Intel SATA controller set as AHCI and the Asmedia SATA controller disabled, the Windows 7 install was basically the same as with Windows 10, but I had to install the USB3.0 drivers when prompted for drivers, and then the NVMe driver to see the drive. Installing the USB3.0 drivers required two drivers. The first driver (Intel USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller) is the only driver detected at first (I used a separate driver USB with FAT32 format for USB3.0 and NVMe drivers). After installing the first driver an error message stated ā€œNo new devices could be foundā€¦ā€. I closed the message and hit ā€œrescanā€, then selected the lower of two drivers listed (Intel USB 3.0 Root Hub).

The screen where you select the drive to install Windows 7 was blank until I installed the NVMe driver. The 960 EVO then appeared as ā€œDisk 1 Unallocated Spaceā€ and a popup stated ā€œWindows cannot be installed to this disk. This computerā€™s hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the diskā€™s controller is enabled in the computerā€™s BIOS menuā€. This confused and irritated me a few times, until I realized that after closing the popup message the ā€œNextā€ button at the bottom of the screen was not grayed out, and I could just ignore the ā€œerrorā€ message, click the ā€œNextā€ button, and continue with the install. The install went fine after that, and after a reboot I had ā€œWindows Boot Managerā€ in the boot manager (F11) and the ā€œBootā€ section of the BIOS. Windows 7 booted normally, but when I tried enabling the Intel RAID controller (with drives connected) and the Asmedia AHCI controller (separately) Windows 7 would not boot in either case.

Through all this, I considered CSM options, but my motherboard only has ā€œEnabledā€ and ā€œDisabledā€. I tried it ā€œDisabledā€, but quickly discovered my 560Ti can not be flashed with a GOP capable VBIOS (itā€™s pre-600 series), so I had to keep CSM enabled.

In the end, I ended up grudgingly keeping Windows 10 on the first 80GBā€™s of the 960 EVO, and I used the rest of it as fast storage (mostly for Acronis images and frequently used files), shared between Windows 10, and Windows 7 on my RAID array. The 960 EVO is definitely faster in some situations (not all), compared to the 850 Proā€™s I already had in RAID0. But, if I canā€™t boot Windows 7 from it, Iā€™d have to say it wasnā€™t worth all the time and frustration just to put Windows 10 on it.


Update: A few months later, another forum member sent me a more recent BIOS file that he had received from ASRock in Taiwan. After testing it I discovered that it had full support for the 960 EVO, and no conflicts with the Intel RAID and Asmedia AHCI controllers, so I was finally able to install Windows 7 on my 960 EVO. So I learned that ASRock in USA, Europe, and Taiwan all had different versions of the latest BIOS that were supposed to support NVMe SSDs, but only the BIOS from the Taiwan branch worked.

Another update: Today I decided to test the modded BIOSā€™ I have, and discovered that I could use Windows 7 install media (USB or DVD) without the Microsoft hotfixes injected. I just assumed from what I had read that it was necessary. I also found that the first BIOS I modded using Fernandoā€™s guide now mysteriously works with the Intel RAID and Asmedia AHCI controllers enabled. I have no idea why there is no longer a conflict with the controllers, as all the settings in my BIOS are the same as they were before.

@Paulos7 :
Thank you very much for your detailed report about your experiences while trying to get Win7 resp. Win10 installed onto your Samsung 960 EVO SSD and about how you finally succeeded. This is a great help for other users, who are planning a similar project.
Most interesting for me are the differences you pointed out regarding the installed OS and the SATA Controllers BIOS settings.
To make it easier for the visitors of this thread to get knowledge about your finds, I will put a link to your report into the start post.

Thanks again!

Dear Fernando, first of all Thanks for your quick response.
I have been hacking a bit and I have discovered that the usb 2.0 port where flashing is done is bad, since running the PC if it is used with any connector, the motherboard is shorted and it has to be restarted, so it is solved. Mystery of why flashing does not work.
Looking at this I have not done the CMOS deletion since it will not solve anything.
Luck bad luck, I imagine that at some point has damaged that port.
Anyway, thanks.

Are you sure, that it is the USB port and not the USB Flash Drive, which has been used?